Triple Eight Race Engineering is in the process of opening a second Brisbane workshop as it takes its latest future-proofing step.
The powerhouse Supercars squad has been based in the northside suburb of Banyo since 2008 – and it now has a second facility in its possession just up the road, where its manufacturing and fabrication equipment will be moved.
Triple Eight co-owner and driver Jamie Whincup confirmed the news to Speedcafe.com, including plans to diversify the business into non-motorsport fields.
“We’ve committed to expanding our manufacturing facility,” said the Triple Eight boss-in-waiting.
“Of course we’re going to be manufacturing a lot more in motorsport but certainly the intention is to expand outside of motorsport into other areas.
“But as far as the motorsport industry goes, we’ll be able to deliver high-quality parts and try to raise the bar as far as manufacturing goes.”
Current Triple Eight team principal and managing director Roland Dane added, “We’ve been wanting to expand the race programme side of the business but also the engineering and manufacturing side of the business as well, so we’ve got another unit down the road now, it’s about 100m away.
“It’s being fitted out at the moment. We started at the beginning of January.
“There’s a fair bit of work to get it up so we hope we’ll be operating in a couple of months’ time.”
Dane elaborated on the establishment of the second workshop, “It’s to do with the expanding race programme in terms of giving us more options in the main factory, giving us more space, more car build, et cetera, whatever else we want to do, and then allow us hopefully on the manufacturing and engineering side to expand into other fields.
“It was difficult last year to try to decide on direction and everything but I decided the second half of last year to step that side of it up and try to get on with some stuff that had been marinating in the background for a while.”
Dane, who will step down from his post at the end of year but remain a shareholder in Triple Eight, added the foray into more manufacturing and engineering would help with future sustainability.
“It’s giving ourselves the best possible footprint for the future and the possibility of having more cars with our main race shop as well – and that doesn’t mean more Supercars, it means more other things,” he said.
Triple Eight this week announced it will enter the Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia in 2021.
In a Supercars sense, the team will have Jamie Whincup, Shane van Gisbergen and its two ZB Commodores in action at Queensland Raceway tomorrow for a pre-season test day.
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